Onsite Coverage: Senior Management Involvement Key to Card Success

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Three executives from credit unions that had strong credit card success in 2012 agreed that getting senior credit union management involved with and committed to the card program early was key to success.

The executives made their comments while on a Friday morning panel at Card Services for Credit Unions’ 2013 annual conference that is going on through Sunday at the Vinoy Renaissance.

The 59,000-member, $700 million CoastHills Federal Credit Union in Lompoc, Calif.; the 69,000-member, $934 million Fox Communities Credit Union in Appleton, Wis., and the 15,000-member, $94 million GEMC FCU in Tucker, Ga., each used slightly different strategies to see strong card performance in 2012, but all agreed that getting senior management committed to the goal early had played a key role.

Having senior management on board helped the credit unions incent their front line staff to back the card and enthusiastically offer it members, the executives said, while senior management commitment had played an important role in making sure the different departments of the two larger credit unions cooperated on the shared goal.

“We were really pleased to see how the different department's worked together,” said David Throne, vice president of internal operations at Fox Communities.

“Front line staff was able to engage members about the cards in part because of the materials that marketing had developed for them to use,” Throne said.

Also on the panel were Joe Mayhew of CoastHills and Julie Brock of GEMC.